Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Iraq snapshot

Tuesday, February 17, 2016. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the Islamic State stages a mass execution of civilians, Rand Paul is seen to be using Iraq as a campaign issue, Jeb Bush thinks he may be able to seek the GOP presidential nomination and dodge the topic of Iraq, Hillary Clinton remains the example of how you can't run from the topic of Iraq, Senator Barbara Boxer stands up, John Nichols props up Congressional embarrassment Barbara Lee, Marie Harf becomes a topic of ridicule outside the Arab world, and much more.

Yes, Iraq will be an issue in the 2016 US presidential race. It should have been one in 2012 but Mitt Romney, carrying the Republican ticket, was an idiot and the press wasn't interested in truth. As September 2012 closed down, Tim Arango squeezed into an article on Syria the news that US President Barack Obama had just sent a brigade of Special-Ops into Iraq in the fall of 2012.

See 'journalist' Jill Abramson didn't think the news was important enough for the front page. She didn't think it warranted its own story. She thought the September 2012 revelation was too close to the November 2012 election.

She thought burying a scoop and betraying the paper's own interests were what a journalist did.

Cheap liar Jill is no longer part of the New York Times.

She's sewer garbage. She'll never come back out of the gutter.

Anytime the little liar tries, she'll find the same stiletto heel on top of her head that ensured her precious Will had to give up his dreams.

Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.

See that was huge.

Unlike Jill Abramson, we didn't bury here. We wrote about it repeatedly because, though I have many faults and sins, being a cheap whore -- one with really bad fashion sense -- is not among my faults or sins.

See Jill wanted to run the paper but, in the end, she ruined the paper by killing one report on the White House after another because, more than truth, more than justice, she wanted Barack to have a second term. And that's what turned the family on her, All the documentation on all the stories the paper had that she either downplayed or outright killed.

In the end, her whoring killed her career. She gives speeches now where she pretends she was a brave journalist. And somehow, every time she does, whispers to the press -- magic? -- reveal she is lying yet again and that she was lying back then.

Let her downfall be a lesson to the rest of the press.

Mitt Romney's campaign thought the American people were too stupid to process on Iraq.

They wanted to claim Barack destroyed Iraq by pulling all troops out of Iraq.

They saw that as portraying him as weak.

Okay, if that's your campaign point then what would paint Barack as weaker than tying on reality to your talking point?

"He pulled all the troops out of Iraq and now things are so bad he's secretly sending Special-Ops back in. But he refuses to tell the American people that he did it because he refuses to admit just how much he screwed up."

They could have sold that.

It would have put Barack on the defensive and taken Mitt off (the press was attacking Mitt for his remarks on Benghazi).

But due to stupidity or whatever, the Mitt Romney campaign decided to fight so weakly no one would mistake it for fighting -- or even campaigning.

It's also true that the press didn't give a damn about Iraq. They were bored with the topic. Which is why Tim Arango's revelation, which preceded the presidential debates, was never raised in one of them -- not even by 'fact' obsessed Candy Crowley.

They wanted to play, the poor bored press, so overpaid and so underworked, they wanted to offer breezy, superficial coverage on superficial topics -- that's part of the reason they took sides on Benghazi (the side being 'ask no questions!').

But lazy bastards that they are, they're going to have to acknowledge Iraq in their 2016 'coverage.'

Not because of Rand Paul.

But because it looks like Hillary Clinton's going to be running for the Democratic Party's nomination and Jeb Bush is going to run for the Republican Party's nomination.

There's CIA Bush -- dogged by all sorts of sexual rumors and predator rumors over the past decades -- and there's crooked Bush who made money despite the failure of Silverado Savings and Loans. Then there's terrorist friendly Marvin Bush and there's Jeb who is considered the 'smart' Bush by default? When Bully Boy Bush George W. is your brother, maybe being the smart Bush requires only that you stand up right and wipe your own ass?

How else to explain his declaring at the press conference, when asked about Iraq and Afghanistan, "I won't talk about the past. I'll talk about the future."

You don't get that option with an ongoing war. You do have to talk about the past and how the current reality was arrived at.

That's whether or not your own brother started the Iraq War which, for the record, Jeb's brother did.

Iraq will be an issue regardless -- Barack's inept response to the Islamic State ensures that -- but if Jeb Bush mounts a campaign for the GOP nomination, he will have to address Iraq.

Meanwhile, there's the Democratic side of the equation. Hillary Clinton announcing she's running will be greeted with yawns because she's bored everyone with her will-she-or-won't-she for so long. Dana Milbank (Washington Post) provides a run down of her (male) staff.

In 2008, Hillary's support for the Iraq War was used to destroy her shot at the nomination. (In fairness to Hillary, the DNC worked overtime to ensure she wouldn't win but Iraq was the focal point of her failure.)

Following her failure to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008, Hillary took the post of Secretary of State. It was supposed to prove she was a team player and rational.

Hillary could have told the truth at any point when she was Secretary of State -- that she wasn't over Iraq. She was shut out by the administration. But she wanted to preen and pose and pretend she was all powerful. So now she really can't point to the White House failures in Iraq and say, "I wasn't in charge." Though she wasn't in charge, to only admit it now would look self-serving. (Check the archives, since 2009 we pointed out that she needed to get honest about that and that a failure to do so would seriously harm a 2016 presidential run.)

She owns Iraq if/when she runs for the Democratic Party nomination. That's partly Barack's responsibility and we'll get to that later.

But the Islamic State, even were it wiped away next month, ensures that foreign policy will be a part of the 2016 presidential race.

Senator Elizabeth Warren isn't running and couldn't win if she did. She has no standing on foreign relations, among other problems. The only Democrat that could seriously run and take on the issue of Iraq on the campaign trail is probably former US Senator Russ Feingold.

Credentials on Iraq can't be faked again. A press wanting 'social justice' (their idiotic notion of it) committed to electing Barack and allowed him to fake his 'strong' opposition to the Iraq War. It's doubtful the press could get away with it again. Nor are they vested in Elizabeth Warren who has a very bad reputation among the press (they see her as "haughty").

Let's turn from the potential 2016 contenders and Iraq to the topic of Iraq and the US Congress.

President Barack Obama is absolutely correct that our nation must
confront these ruthless terrorists. But he was also correct to promise
that America would not be sending U.S. combat troops back to the Middle
East to fight another ground war.This is the commitment the
president made last June when he said, “I think we always have to guard
against mission creep, so let me repeat what I’ve said in the past:
American combat troops are not going to be fighting in Iraq again.” He
made the same point again during his State of the Union Address last
month when he stated, “Instead of getting dragged into another ground
war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab
nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”That
is why I was so surprised by the administration’s draft AUMF which
would allow this administration and the next one broad discretion to
commit American troops in the fight against ISIL. The only limitation is
no “enduring offensive ground combat operations.”At best, this language is vague, overly broad and confusing — and no one
has defined the meaning of “enduring.” At worst, it is a dangerous
loophole that could lead to another large-scale conflict involving tens
of thousands of American troops. I cannot and will not support such an
AUMF.

Apparently, she's decided she'll end her Congressional career with strength and conviction.

But then there's the ridiculous US House Rep Barbara Lee who used to be a serious voice -- or seen as such -- against wars in the days before Barack Obama became president of the United States. In the time since, she's become such an embarrassment that she even lied repeatedly in her ghost written biography (the publisher knew and reworked statements in most cases but it still contained outright lies when it was published).

The US involvement in the failed operation was sort of pushed under the
rug. Not just because it revealed what a lie Barack's claim that US
troops would not see combat but also because it demonstrated that the
combined might of the Iraqi forces and the US military had failed
against the Islamic State in something as simple as taking back a small
town.

Alessandria Masi (IBT) noted that al-Baghdadi was "just 3 miles (5 km) from the Ain al-Asad U.S. Marine Corps base, where
roughly 320 Americans are stationed to train Iraqi soldiers."

Had the White House done their job, right now this would be the end of the Islamic State.

I do want to be clear though, this is not solely or even primarily a
military challenge. Over the past decade, American troops have made
extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis an opportunity to claim their
own future. Unfortunately, Iraq’s leaders have been unable to overcome
too often the mistrust and sectarian differences that have long been
simmering there, and that’s created vulnerabilities within the Iraqi
government as well as their security forces.So any action that we may take to provide assistance to Iraqi
security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by
Iraq’s leaders to set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability,
and account for the legitimate interests of all of Iraq’s communities,
and to continue to build the capacity of an effective security force.
We can’t do it for them. And in the absence of this type of political
effort, short-term military action, including any assistance we might
provide, won’t succeed. So this should be a wake-up call. Iraq’s leaders have to demonstrate
a willingness to make hard decisions and compromises on behalf of the
Iraqi people in order to bring the country together. In that effort,
they will have the support of the United States and our friends and our
allies.

The White House was smart enough to put the words in Barack's mouth, they just weren't smart enough to execute those orders.

And all these months later, people are starting to notice the White House's refusal to work towards political solutions in Iraq.

And now some are being held up for ridicule.

While Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly confused himself with the Secretary of Defense, the State Dept spokespersons Marie Harf and Jen Psaki have confused themselves with DoD spokespersons as they trumpeted the bombing efforts of the Defense Dept because they had nothing to trumpet on the diplomatic front in Iraq.

Never in the history of public relations have
an institution and its representatives been so mismatched as at the
current U.S. Department of State, where, tasked with articulating
America’s position toward Middle East terror outfits, Russian
aggression, and the world’s other vicissitudes, are Jen Psaki and Marie
Harf, currently in the midst of an interminable Lucy-and-Ethel routine
as Foggy Bottom’s spokesperson and deputy spokesperson, respectively. In
an administration that has always given the distinct impression of
being directed by second-year poli-sci majors from the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, Psaki and Harf are the only two under the impression
that Legally Blonde was a documentary — one that they are apparently trying to recreate, with little success, at Foggy Bottom.

Tonight, she joined Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s The Situation Room and attempted to clarify her point.“I’m not the first person to say something like this,” Harf said.
“Military commanders that we’ve had throughout many years here fighting
this war on terrorism have said the exact same thing, that in the short
term when there’s a threat like ISIL. We’ll take direct military action
against these terrorists. We have done that. We are doing that in Iraq
and Syria. But longer term, we have to look at how we combat the
conditions that can lead people to turn to extremism.”“So you suggested that maybe if you find these young men jobs, they
might not become terrorists?” Blitzer asked, echoing her critics,
prompting Harf to call his statement a “gross oversimplification.” “We cannot kill every terrorist around the world, nor should we try,”
Harf said later. “How do you get at the root causes of this? It might
be too nuanced an argument for some, like I’ve seen over the last 24
hours some of the commentary out there, but it’s really the smart way
that Democrats, Republicans, our partners in the Arab world think we
need to combat it.”

The US State Dept continues to stumble. For example, they refused to have Marie moderate today's briefing -- as if that would vanish the criticism being made.

Of course, the issue was raised in the press briefing and here's Jen Psaki stumbling like an idiot:

QUESTION: Great. Last one: Marie Harf, your colleague, last
night I think it was, was on MSNBC saying that we can’t win this war by
killing them – when she was talking about ISIS – we cannot kill our way
out of this war; we need a longer-term, medium-long-term get after the
root causes. She talked about finding jobs for people in these countries
where they see no hope. What was she trying to say there?MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, Ed, she – Marie, my colleague, was
saying what we’ve said many times, which is this is not only a military
solution. A military solution will not bring an end to ISIL. That’s why
there are several components of our coalition. Yes, the military
component is important, and we’ve done thousands of strikes in Iraq and
Syria. That’s continuing to pick up, as you know, and you’ve covered
quite a bit. But we also need to delegitimize ISIL. If the ideology is
out there and growing, we – ISIL will continue to grow and thrive. We
need to cut off their financing, we need to prevent foreign fighters
from moving.And I – she was also talking about, in her interview, not just ISIL
but the CVE summit – and the CVE summit that we’ll be hosting – and I
know is happening at the White House over where you are right now – is
broad; it’s not just about ISIL – that certainly is a part of it, but
it’s about countering violent extremism and how to take on this threat
over the long term. And obviously there are several components of that
as – and the evidence of that is also all of the different breakout
groups that are happening throughout the summit. But again, I think this
is something we’ve talked about quite a bit, and the need to make sure
we’re working with countries to address some of the root causes that
have led to the ability to recruit.

Notice how they don't answer the question.

What she should have done was referenced Barack's June comments:

I do want to be clear though, this is not solely or even primarily a military challenge. Over the past decade, American troops have made extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis an opportunity to claim their own future. Unfortunately, Iraq’s leaders have been unable to overcome too often the mistrust and sectarian differences that have long been simmering there, and that’s created vulnerabilities within the Iraqi government as well as their security forces.So any action that we may take to provide assistance to Iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by Iraq’s leaders to set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability, and account for the legitimate interests of all of Iraq’s communities, and to continue to build the capacity of an effective security force. We can’t do it for them. And in the absence of this type of political effort, short-term military action, including any assistance we might provide, won’t succeed. So this should be a wake-up call. Iraq’s leaders have to demonstrate a willingness to make hard decisions and compromises on behalf of the Iraqi people in order to bring the country together. In that effort, they will have the support of the United States and our friends and our allies.

They don't reference them because the White House has been unwilling to focus on political solutions.

And that's why, all these months of bombing from the air later, there's no real movement in Iraq and the White House has no lveerage.

Sunnis are more horrified by the Islamic State than ever. But there
was nothing done to reach out to them in all this time.

Instead Barack and the White House have willfully and actively looked
the other way as their latest puppet (Haider al-Abadi) has continued the
targeting of the Sunnis, using Shi'ite militias (as did Nouri) intent on killing Sunni civilians as 'legitimate' forces in Iraq.

As much as last Friday's US military effort to take back al-Baghdadi
failed, an even bigger failure has been the White House's non-work
towards a political solution.

The militias’ growing clout is calling into question the
sustainability of a strategy in which U.S. warplanes are bombing from
the sky to advance the consolidation of power on the ground by groups
that are backed by Iran and potentially hostile to the United States,
analysts say.

If the fighting continues on its current
trajectory, there is a real risk the United States will defeat the
Islamic State but lose Iraq to Iran in the process, said Michael Knights
of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Though Iraq’s Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi has welcomed American assistance and is calling
for more, the militias’ strength threatens to undermine his authority
and turn Iraq into a version of Lebanon, where a weak government is
hostage to the whims of the powerful Hezbollah movement.

Lastly, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) notes 167 violent deaths across Iraq today and "According to the Minority Rights Group International and
the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights as many as 10,000 Iraqi women have
been trafficked
into sexual slavery or for ransom."

About Me

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